 Despite
how the saying goes, ignorance definitely is not bliss. If it
was, then perhaps thousands, maybe even hundreds of thousands
of Jews would have been able to escape the impending Holocaust
while time was still on their side. Instead, many of them lived
in denial about their surroundings and tried to convince themselves
that "it will pass" or "it can't happen here."
Well, "it"
did happen, and millions of innocent people lost their possessions,
their loved ones and ultimately their lives as Hitler carried
out his "final solution" throughout Eastern Europe.
From a cinematic standpoint, that horror was conveyed most effectively
in two films over the last decade -- Steven Spielberg's Schindler's
List and Roberto Benigni's Life is Beautiful -- and
despite their very different approaches, both were enormously
successful at the box office and won a slew of Academy Awards.
One film that will
likely be added to that list is Roman Polanski's The Pianist,
an incredibly moving and devastatingly brilliant film that will
ultimately be hailed as the director's near masterpiece. That's
saying a lot when you consider that his legacy includes classics
like Rosemary's Baby and Chinatown, but thanks to
incredible production values, a true story that celebrates the
triumph of the human spirit and a bravura performance from Adrien
Brody, The Pianist is a powerful achievement that will leave you
speechless.
Wladyslaw Szpilman
(Adrien Brody) was a celebrated Jewish musician when the Nazis
invaded Poland at the outset of World War II. In no time, he and
his family were relocated to the Warsaw Ghetto and struggled to
stay alive while many Jews were sent off to their deaths. Szpilman
was eventually separated from his loved ones, but he was able
to survive in the face of unbeatable odds with the help of some
unlikely allies, including -- of all people -- a German officer
(Thomas Kretschmann) who helped him hide until the final days
of the war.
If there's any filmmaker
who's most qualified to document the horrors of the Holocaust,
it's Roman Polanski. Unlike Spielberg and Benigni, Polanski witnessed
the atrocities first hand, having escaped the Cracow Ghetto at
the age of 7 through a hole in a barbed wire fence. Given how
controversial Polanski's life has been (his wife Sharon Tate was
murdered by the Manson family in 1969, and Polanski himself fled
the country rather than face statutory rape charges in the mid-70's)
this very important fact usually gets buried when his career is
discussed.
Polanski hasn't made
a decent film in years, but The Pianist will surely re-establish
him as one of the world's premiere directors. Already the winner
of the Palme D'Or at the Cannes Film Festival, the film has a
realistic quality and effectively guides the moviegoer through
the passage of time without being pretentious or contrived. Polanski
also keeps the film's emotional core front and center by making
it more inspiring than it is depressing, which is no small feat.
Adrien Brody has always
been a strong presence in acclaimed films like The Thin Red
Line and Liberty Heights, but he delivers a gut-wrenching,
powerful and Oscar-worthy performance in The Pianist that
runs a gamut of emotions. His initial carefree attitude is quickly
replaced by devastation, desperation and starvation when every
day becomes a fight for survival, but during one crucial scene
where he plays the piano for the first time in ages, the beauty
of the moment briefly washes away all the horrors that preceded
it.
Having said that,
the film is not without one glaring, frustrating flaw. After Brody
miraculously survives years of living through what can only be
described as hell on earth, he emerges at the film's rather abrupt
end looking and acting not all that different from the way he
was at the very beginning. Surely his ordeal would have affected
him in a myriad of ways, but we never get to witness this aftermath
or his all-important re-emergence into society, which would have
truly made his journey all the more effective and complete.
In today's age of
information overload, it's easy to get jaded. It's also easy to
avoid information altogether and live by the aforementioned saying
that "ignorance is bliss." If we've learned anything
from the Holocaust -- not to mention the events of September 11
-- it's that ignorance is not bliss, and yes, "it" can
happen again. One can only hope and pray that it will never happen
at all, which is why we must embrace movies like The Pianist,
which Polanski accurately describes as "a testimony to the
power of music, the will to live, and the courage to stand against
evil."
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